Hughesy

I don't think that Ben Arfa is ready to play in a free role behind the striker yet. His position, certainly at the moment, is definitely out on the wing.

He was a useful defender (and midfielder) but i wouldn't say he was bloody good in terms technique. He was a very good defender across the whole back 4. Certainly a better defender and better technically than Simpson and Williamson by some considerable distance.

One of the worst mistakes this club has ever done selling him for 1M. Yep - awful awful decision

Aaron Hughes was a bloody good player to be honest..

Quite often Krul does have to go long as the full backs don't pull out wide to receive the ball. Then that's surely the clearest indication that its tactical Could well be. I am still not convinced it is tactical, mainly because we simply didn't play like that earlier in the season.

Quite often Krul does have to go long as the full backs don't pull out wide to receive the ball.

The man's a fraud and like all good fraudsters he'll find mugs who fall for his patter. Just as well we have people like you who can see through it and let us all know.

He did absolutely fine today. Yep. Just loved the way he took it on his chest, let it fall to his feet and then sprayed a nice pass to a red and white shirt. Absolute class from this complete waste of space. Umm - Shola played well when he came on.

I am worried. My away record this season has been appalling.

But this is Ashley's M.O. Cut rate discounts. Fire sales. Everything must go. We've heard it for five years so it has to be happening soon. "Asset-Stripping" Remember that one? That was a good one. I like you. You seem sensible.

Rumours that Arsenal might do it with RVP. Although I agree it is highly uncommon. And a little bit stupid.

I don't, I do know ours isn't though. I don't think many, if any, are run like that. Certainly not on a regular basis - there might be the odd individual exception.

Yeah - just seems such a large difference. Derek then talks about using SJP in the summer as a great source of revenue, but I am not aware of Spurs making WHL into a concert venue or such like in the summer. I suppose it must be down to their sponsorship far exceeding ours.

Who on earth do Spurs make £50 million through commercial revenues and we make £15 million?

Would like to see Ben Arfa on right against Gibbs. Reckon he would get more joy out of Gibbs than Sagna.

Definitely should always be looking to improve, but surely people recognise that we are realistically a £20-30 million worth of investment (and not selling any key players) away from even securing a top 6 slot on a regular basis, let the huge sums it would take to push on beyond that. As Roger Kint pointed out I cannot see there being much chance that Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool will not invest further in the summer to add to their already stronger squads. And whether Ashley invests or not, clearly is not down to Pardew.

What would people expect from Pardew next season if we get 6th place this season?

The impression I got from the match was that Pardew's reactions were in fact in response to the actions of O'Neill and his sorry crew. Bit of a case of 'he started it first', but not sure why Pards is copping the flak in the media for this one.

Some sense spoken.

Not really sure what age has to do with anything. Complete non-point. And one of the most pretentious and patronising posts I have ever read.

Yes - but no-one can ever know exactly how much any one manager uses Prozone. It's just a lazy label that people like to throw about.

Can I just clear one thing up? Lots of top managers (in fact, I would hazard a guess that all top managers) use Prozone. This is not something exclusive to Pardew and Allardyce.

When you see the stills like that, it just rams home how important the consistency is if Dean is going to make the decision he did with Williamson. Shocking that ESPN, BBC and the newspapers haven't picked up on this, yet will bang on about the great decision re Williamson. Appalling really.

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree: Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat. We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football. We played well in the second half. The first half and the last few games have not been representative of the way we have played this season. It's getting there though. We've been hitting the long ball and setting up more and more negatively every week since around the middle of December. With Man Utd the obvious and glaring exception, our performances since the Chelsea game have been dismal. It's to our credit that we've still managed to pick up points in that period but some of the winning performances have been incredibly poor. The excuse a few weeks ago was the absence of the central midfield but nothing has changed, in fact I'd say it's gotten worse. We seldom try to pass the ball through midfield or have the wide players make any forward runs into space. It's become all about protecting the back four and we've got big problems if they really need protecting when 2-0 up at home to Wolves. I would agree that performances have gradually got worse since the Chelsea game. I genuinely think that Pardew was a bit rattled by that defeat and the loss of Saylor has not helped. Genuinely think we will see a better brand of football for the rest of this season. But we shall see. I realise many will not share my sentiments.

For 30 or so minutes yesterday where it went like this I'd beg to disagree: Krul - hoof - mackem header wins ball, they attack we clear our lines - hoof. Repeat repeat repeat. We were f***ing awful yesterday and its more depressing given the quality of our players, players with the attributes to play really good football. We played well in the second half. The first half and the last few games have not been representative of the way we have played this season.